VU Connects with Local Community

Bill Forrest, Director of Advocacy,
Wyndham City Council

VU is committed to fostering connections with the local community, including local councils. An example of this was a recent visit to the School of Accounting and Finance by Mr. Bill Forrest, Director of Advocacy at Wyndham City Council. Dr. Nick Sciulli, Head of the School of Accounting & Finance’s Research Discipline group on Governance and Accountability, hosted the visit. He said its aim was to explore the potential for collaborative, mutually beneficial research projects between the council and interested academics in the School.

Mr. Forrest's position is a new one at the council, and reports directly to the CEO. A core strategic goal of the role is to influence public policy and resource allocation decisions by State and Federal Governments and other key stakeholders. Given that Wyndham City is located in one of the highest growth regions in Australia, several submissions have already been made to State and Federal Governments on issues such as a sustainable population strategy, environmental design, public health and transport challenges.

Several possible research proposals were explored in the meeting with Mr Forrest. The School has agreed to commence an exploratory project investigating the motivations for, and drivers of, advocacy strategies in local councils. As well as resulting in original published academic research, Dr Sciulli said the project would provide local councils with useful data that they could use to benchmark and evaluate their own advocacy strategies.